# Flashing external Flash Over The Air?

**URL:** <https://community.particle.io/t/flashing-external-flash-over-the-air/3751>\
**Category:** General\
**Created:** [April 3, 2014, 6:43am UTC](https://community.particle.io/t/flashing-external-flash-over-the-air/3751 "2014-04-03T06:43:45Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 11\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![nika8991](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/ecccb3/32.png) [@nika8991](https://community.particle.io/u/nika8991)\
**Post date:** [April 3, 2014, 6:43am UTC](https://community.particle.io/t/flashing-external-flash-over-the-air/3751/1 "2014-04-03T06:43:45Z")

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At the moment I use dfu-util to flash the external flash with the USB cable. Is it possible to flash the external flash Over The Air (OTA) in the same way as we can do for the application?

Thanks,  
Henk

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**Author:** ![kennethlimcp](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/c0e974/32.png) [@kennethlimcp](https://community.particle.io/u/kennethlimcp)\
**Post date:** [April 3, 2014, 9:33am UTC](https://community.particle.io/t/flashing-external-flash-over-the-air/3751/2 "2014-04-03T09:33:15Z")

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It’s not a out-of-the-box feature and you would need to modify possibly the bootloader or main firmware to get this working.

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**Author:** ![Dave](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/flex026/user_avatar/community.particle.io/dave/32/181_2.png) [@Dave](https://community.particle.io/u/Dave)\
**Post date:** [April 9, 2014, 3:02pm UTC](https://community.particle.io/t/flashing-external-flash-over-the-air/3751/4 "2014-04-09T15:02:13Z")

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This is a feature we’ve been discussing internally. Since we’ve already built a system for pushing binaries to external flash for OTA firmware updates, I think it wouldn’t be too hard to add another message type for writing to other regions of flash and expose it via the API. If this is something you guys would like us to prioritize, please feel free to cast your vote here! 😄

Thanks,  
David

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**Author:** ![kennethlimcp](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/c0e974/32.png) [@kennethlimcp](https://community.particle.io/u/kennethlimcp)\
**Post date:** [April 9, 2014, 3:06pm UTC](https://community.particle.io/t/flashing-external-flash-over-the-air/3751/5 "2014-04-09T15:06:28Z")

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Maybe the priority should be the user-functions to access the external flash or even CC3000 EEPROM? That’s a long over due function though this might be much easier to implement 😃

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**Author:** ![Dave](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/flex026/user_avatar/community.particle.io/dave/32/181_2.png) [@Dave](https://community.particle.io/u/Dave)\
**Post date:** [April 9, 2014, 3:09pm UTC](https://community.particle.io/t/flashing-external-flash-over-the-air/3751/6 "2014-04-09T15:09:03Z")

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Hmm, I agree better support for that would be awesome. I don’t know the status of that feature, but I can check with the firmware guys. 🙂

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**Author:** ![kennethlimcp](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/c0e974/32.png) [@kennethlimcp](https://community.particle.io/u/kennethlimcp)\
**Post date:** [April 9, 2014, 3:11pm UTC](https://community.particle.io/t/flashing-external-flash-over-the-air/3751/7 "2014-04-09T15:11:04Z")

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so squeeze them 😃 Would also love to hear about the other spark core versions in the planning (even is it’s just conceptual) and the china photos @dave 😛

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**Author:** ![Raul](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/958977/32.png) [@Raul](https://community.particle.io/u/Raul)\
**Post date:** [August 6, 2014, 10:33am UTC](https://community.particle.io/t/flashing-external-flash-over-the-air/3751/8 "2014-08-06T10:33:40Z")

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I would definitely like the feature of OTA writing to the external flash memory.

How soon can we expect such a feature?

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**Author:** ![satishgn](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/flex026/user_avatar/community.particle.io/satishgn/32/20740_2.png) [@satishgn](https://community.particle.io/u/satishgn)\
**Post date:** [August 6, 2014, 12:45pm UTC](https://community.particle.io/t/flashing-external-flash-over-the-air/3751/9 "2014-08-06T12:45:23Z")

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The PR to support such a feature is over here:

core-common-lib changes:

> <https://github.com/particle-iot/core-common-lib/pull/32>

core-communication-lib changes:

> <https://github.com/particle-iot/core-communication-lib/pull/22>

core-firmware changes:

> <https://github.com/particle-iot/firmware/pull/250>

Following additions have been made:  
1)Serial flashing firmware via USB/USART (Serial/Serial1/Serial2) using YMODEM protocol.  
2)Serial flashing files to any location on External Flash.  
3)OTA flashing files to any location on External Flash.

There’s some work to be done on the cloud-server side for 3) to test this feature end-to-end. Hopefully we’ll surely get this feature available in our next release cycle.

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**Author:** ![kennethlimcp](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/c0e974/32.png) [@kennethlimcp](https://community.particle.io/u/kennethlimcp)\
**Post date:** [August 6, 2014, 12:47pm UTC](https://community.particle.io/t/flashing-external-flash-over-the-air/3751/10 "2014-08-06T12:47:18Z")

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@satishgn, I’m just wondering what’s the motivation behind implementing the Serial flash protocol instead of bugfixes? 🙂

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**Author:** ![satishgn](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/flex026/user_avatar/community.particle.io/satishgn/32/20740_2.png) [@satishgn](https://community.particle.io/u/satishgn)\
**Post date:** [August 6, 2014, 12:54pm UTC](https://community.particle.io/t/flashing-external-flash-over-the-air/3751/11 "2014-08-06T12:54:58Z")

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@kennethlimcp, we’ve been working on both new feature additions and bug-fixes together, but as you said we’ll giving now more priority to fix the backlog issues. Will discuss with the team on this. Thanks for the reminder 😄

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**Author:** ![naikrovek](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/flex026/user_avatar/community.particle.io/naikrovek/32/4162_2.png) [@naikrovek](https://community.particle.io/u/naikrovek)\
**Post date:** [January 26, 2015, 5:17pm UTC](https://community.particle.io/t/flashing-external-flash-over-the-air/3751/12 "2015-01-26T17:17:50Z")

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Any update? Flashing over the air from my own filesystem is of particular interest to me.
